Out of the blue came a letter telling me Jonny was hopping over to India for a long stay.  Could he bunk with me?

     Jonny was the only son of Professor Kenilworth, one of my teachers in a London medical college shortly after the war.  I had been invited often to the Professor's home, undoubtedly because he considered me a promising pupil.  Jonny had looked up to me as an older brother, seeking advice for his growing pains.  His adulation was rather flattering.

     Shortly after I started my practice in London, the Professor took his wife and Jonny to India.  He had been engaged to lecture at the Medical College in Calcutta.  A year later they were back in London and, almost immediately, I was summoned to his home. 

     “Trevor,” said the Professor, “I have recommended you for the position I vacated,” and he insisted I take advantage of the opportunity.  I asked him why he had left India so precipitously.  It was not until I was established at the Medical College in Calcutta that I realized I had received no answer from him.

     Jonny wrote regularly over the years.  He informed me of his decision to take up medicine; it seemed natural to follow in his father's footsteps.  I was delighted to learn of his success in his studies and that he had gone on to Psychiatry.  I rejoiced with him when he qualified.  He was accepted into partnership on Harley Street.  “I've taken the name of Kene,” he wrote, “so as not to be confused with my illustrious father.”  I was touched that he never permitted the communication to break between us.  So, when I received his letter concerning his planned visit to India, I wrote at once a welcoming reply.

I had long since left the Medical College and was now the Director of the Harrington Nursing Home.  I greeted him in my air-conditioned office.

     “Jonny!” I couldn't help exclaim as I shook his hand.  “Is it really you?  You were such a skinny fellow when I last saw you.  My word!  Nine years already!  Thinning a bit on top, old boy, but I must say you would pass for a Lothario and not a respectable psychiatrist.  I'm willing to bet most of your patients are female.” 

     I led him, sweating and smiling, to my desk.  I felt irrationally proud of this handsome young man.  “Forgive my not being at the airport this morning," I apologized.  “I trust the driver had no trouble finding you.”

     “None at all,” said Jonny, dropping into the chair before my desk, “only I'd forgotten the heat.  It's a relief in here.”

     “Enjoy it while it lasts,” I said.  “We endure power cuts several times a day."  I parked myself in my chair, pleased to have his company at last.  But what a waste of a good-looking fellow, I thought.  "Look here, Jonny, you're pushing thirty.  Among your patients, wasn't there one girl you could be serious about?  Look at me, thirty seven and alone.  Don't make the same mistake.”

     “To tell the truth, Trevor, I've yet to meet someone I could live with for the rest of my life.”

     “You're probably too choosy, like me.”       

     “Probably,” he laughed.  “The girls I met seemed too superficial.  The ones I liked were married!”  Flippancy could not hide his earnestness.  “It's the woman wiser for suffering, who interests me,” he said.

     “That's the psychiatrist in you.”

     “Perhaps.”

     “I know just the girl for you.” I rose from my chair with an air of mystery.  “But come.  I'd like you to meet someone who'll interest you professionally.  Brought in some ten years ago suffering from catatonic schizophrenia like you've never seen.  I inherited her.  How she's managed to stay alive is a story in itself.”

     He followed me to a private room.  I knocked, knowing it would make no difference and led him in.  He reacted with a start and his eyes widened.  Considering the object seated on a wheelchair by the window, it did not surprise me.  A very thin, very old woman, with skin of flaky parchment, with hair grey and unkempt, straggling down the sides of her face, with eyes fixed unseeing, a statue in the ghost world.

     “She looks a hundred, doesn't she,” I commented.  “Would you believe she's not yet fifty!”

     “Let's go,” Jonny said, laconic and brittle.  Outside, he said: “Why did you speak aloud in front of your patient?”

     “Old Mrs. Jacobson!” I exclaimed.  “She doesn't hear a thing.  She might as well be stone.”

     “You’re wrong, Trevor,” said Jonny.  “She hears everything.”

     I confess I felt a wave of annoyance.  “Oh, come now, Jonny, you were in there not twenty seconds.  I've looked after her for almost six years.  What makes you so sure?”

     “She blinked several times while you spoke.”

     I was so irritated, more with myself than with Jonny, I did not expand on Mrs. Jacobson's history then.  As it was nearing lunch time anyway, we drove home.  I showed him his room and told the bearer to unpack the sahib's things while we ate.

     Over lunch, we small-talked about London.  The memory of the morning still lingered.  I tried to stifle the awkwardness by encouraging Jonny to speak of his father, who had gone into surly retire­ment, and of his mother, for whom old age had unleashed a more forceful personality - to the chagrin of the old man.  I had not been back since coming East more than nine years ago, and I confessed I hardly missed it. 

     “I know I would be a fish out of water there,” I said.  “The Indian way of life quite spoils one.” 

      We adjourned to the lounge for coffee.

     “What about your patient?”

     “Hmmmm?”   I knew whom he meant.

     “Mrs. Jacobson.”

      “Oh yes,” I said, “Mrs. Jacobson.  Well, not much to tell really.  Her daughter - Sandra, I believe was her name - committed suicide in a most bizarre manner.  Swallowed sulphuric acid.  Collapsed on the broken bottle she’d dropped.  A jagged piece of glass pierced her under the diaphragm and punctured her heart.  A freak accident.  Created quite a scandal.  Over a love affair, I believe.  Passions run high in this climate.  The mother's mind snapped.  One moment, a rational human being; the next, a vegetable.  She was a leading figure in the city.  Very rich.  Her niece manages her fortune now.  A charming young woman.  Very pretty.  Comes in twice a week to visit her aunt.  Never fails.  As a matter of fact, she's the girl I want you to meet.”